The One With The Birthday Video
by KateToast
Summary: The day before she leaves for college, Emma finds the tape from her first birthday in her closet, and watches it with her family. One-shot.


**Disclaimer**: I don't own Friends.

**A/N**: Here's a little ditty taking place right before Emma goes off to college. All quotes in _italics_ are taken from 'The One With The Cake', except for the last part, which was my doing.

**NEW 8/11/05**: Edited and fixed mistakes and such I had made in my first posting of this. Not too much is different, it was mostly grammatical errors that needed remedying.

**XXX**

Emma sighed loudly as she made her way through the maze that was currently her bedroom. Weaving around boxes, she inched towards her closet. She had already knocked over two over-stuffed boxes on her way through the door.

Packing for college, she decided, was not the piece of cake she thought it would be.

Since orientation was in four days, and the drive to Duke University from New York took quite a while, and her whole family was coming to say goodbye (which meant they were going to stay overnight somewhere nearby the school), Emma had spent the past week getting everything she needed, and packing. All that was left was to go through her closet, which she hadn't really seen the back or bottom of in years. Her mother had promised to help her, but Emma was getting tired of waiting for her, and wasn't really in the mood to cheer her up. The day before, they had been folding clothes that were to be put in boxes when Rachel had begun sobbing something that sounded like, "My baby is leaving!"

Emma understood that her going off to college was making her mom even more vulnerable to crying fits, so she did what she had been doing constantly since she had decided to go to Duke to pursue psychology: She'd reassured Rachel that she'd e-mail and call all the time, that it would be like she hadn't left at all, and that she still had her brother Sean, who was just starting high school, and her sister Jen, who was only eleven.

Her father had been taking this much better than her mother. Still, though, Emma wondered if he was a bit hurt that she had decided not to attend New York University, where he was the head of the paleontology department.

At that moment, the sound of a box falling over and spilling its contents ruined her train of thought. Emma looked up from her crouched position in the closet, spotting her father trying to place everything he had knocked over back in the box.

"Hey," she said. "That only took me like, half an hour to pack."

Flustered now, Ross just dumped the stuff haphazardly, and slowly trekked over to the closet. "Sorry," he apologized.

"Where is everyone?" Emma asked.

Ross finally reached the closet doorway. "Your mom's on the phone with Aunt Monica, and Sean and Jen are outside with Darwin."

Darwin was the beagle Emma and her siblings had gotten as a gift for Christmas two years ago from their parents. Emma had heard how her father had pitched the idea to name her Darwin if she was a boy, and then he had tried to sell it again while Rachel was pregnant with Sean. Though she had only been four, Emma still remembered her parents going back and forth about it. Rachel had, obviously, won that battle. When the puppy made his way onto the scene, Ross had said that since his son didn't get the name, the least the family could do was give the name to the dog.

"Are Monica, Chandler, Jack and Erica coming for dinner tonight?" Jack and Erica, her sixteen-year-old twin cousins, were two of her best friends, since they lived so close and were over so often. And Monica and Chandler were two of her favorite people in the world.

Ross nodded as he picked up a worn Spirit Board and dusted it off. "Of course they're coming. So are Phoebe, Mike and Chris." The Hannigans still lived in the city. Chris and Sean were best friends, despite the fact that Chris was a year older. Emma loved Phoebe and the stories the woman told.

"Guess who else is coming," Ross added, a twinkle in his eyes.

Emma knew exactly who he meant. "Joey?" she asked, excited at the prospect of seeing her famous 'uncle'. All through her life he had been in movies and on TV, and had only just recently decided to take a break, though he was set to star in a movie that began filming in two weeks. He lived in California with his wife Alex, so she didn't get to see him that often. They hadn't thought he'd be able to attend this 'last supper' of sorts before she left for college.

Before they could continue, there was another clatter of a box being knocked over while miscellaneous things fell back to the floor. Emma could make out the huffy sound of her mother muttering to herself. Finally, she appeared in front of them. Spying what they were doing, she looked at her daughter.

"I thought _I_ was going to help you go through your closet," Rachel nearly whined.

"Yeah, well, I wanted to get it done, and you were on the phone, and Dad came to help…" Emma finished lamely, not wanting to mention that she hadn't had the energy to deal with an emotional mother.

"Oh. Well, you've got a lot of stuff out here." Her mom waved a hand absently, indicating the jungle of boxes.

Ross snorted. "Well, you've corrupted her over the years, miss latest-fashions." Emma chuckled slightly at the way her father tried to poke fun at her mother's obsession with clothes and fashion. Rachel had just been promoted to executive of women's clothing at Ralph Lauren, where she had been working on-and-off all of Emma's life, and longer. She still didn't quite understand why they had taken her back three times.

While her parents bickered good-naturedly, Emma spied a black rectangular object behind a bag of knitting she had once tried to master. She grabbed it and wiped the dust, reading the label aloud. "'Emma's First Birthday'?"

Rachel and Ross glanced at her. Ross grabbed the video from her. "Wow. I thought this got lost when we moved here."

"What is it?" Emma asked eagerly.

"Well, your father and I recorded some stuff from your first birthday party," Rachel informed her.

Emma was as curious as ever. "Can we watch it?"

Ross nodded and stood upright outside the closet. "Yeah, I'll go get the VCR from the garage."

Rachel followed him out of the room, and Emma trailed behind. She watched as her father put an arm around her mother, and couldn't help but smile slightly. Her parents' best friends had told her many different versions of the epic love story of Ross Geller and Rachel Green; how they had always seemed to love each other but could never make it work, may it be other people or timing issues. Emma knew, of course, that she had been conceived out of wedlock, and at a time when the two hadn't even been _close_ to getting back together. She didn't resent her younger siblings at all for being born into the idyllic family, since she hardly remembered the time when her parents hadn't been together. Sometimes she thought she could recall snippets of their wedding, but she wasn't sure.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, Emma heard her mother explaining to Sean and Jen what they were going to do. She entered the room and stood beside Rachel.

"Why do we always have to do stuff for Emma?" Sean asked as he clicked off the TV with the remote, in a typical teen 'it's all about me' voice. He was almost the spitting image of their father; dark hair, dark eyes, and similar personalities.

"Well when you go off to college we'll do everything for you. It's her last day here, so after this you won't have to do this stuff anymore," Ross answered as he entered from the kitchen, carrying the old VCR.

Emma stuck her tongue out at her brother in a way that made her lose years of maturity, and plopped down beside him. Jen, who copied everything her big sister did, also stuck her tongue out. The girl looked more like Rachel and Emma than her father and brother, but still had Ross' brown eyes.

As Ross started hooking up the VCR, Sean ruffled Jen's hair. She retaliated by pinching him. He pinched back, and she let out a yelp and began hitting him. Emma rolled her eyes. Rachel looked over at them. "Cut it out, guys."

Emma watched as Ross tried to figure out which wire went where in the TV with her mother's help. Of course, Rachel's idea of 'helping' was to flutter around the person doing the work and give useless suggestions.

Sean sighed. "So, what are we doing for Princess Emma now?"

"We're watching a video of my first birthday," the 'Princess' replied.

"We're watching a video of your first birthday?" he reiterated.

"Did I not just say that those exact words?"

"Man, you need to chill, Em. I mean, if you don't calm down, then your boyfriend may not come over anymore when Mom and Dad aren't home-"

Emma clamped a hand over his mouth. Rachel looked at them. "_Excuse_ me?"

"Never mind," her daughter waved off.

"Ow!" their father shouted, shaking his hand in the air. "All set," he said, pained.

Rachel stuck the video in, and sat with her husband in one of their overstuffed armchairs. It started.

"_Hey, there's uncle Joey!" _Ross was shouting from off-camera as Joey came out of his room, yawning. Emma recognized the apartment from pictures and her own memories; it had been where she had lived for a good portion for the first few years of her life with her mother, before they moved to Westchester. "_Hey, say something to Emma on her 18th birthday_!"

"_18, huh?" Joey grinned. _Emma could tell he was getting ready to say his "how you doin'" line.

"_Joey, no!"_

_Joey was confused. "What, what! It's for her hot friends!"_

Emma laughed at this, along with the rest of her family. The screen flashed and this time Jack and Judy Geller came into the picture.

"_Hi!" they said at the same time._

"_So glad you came!" Monica greeted. _

"_I can't believe Emma is already one!" Jack said proudly._

_Judy turned to Monica. "I remember your first birthday. Ross was jealous of all the attention we were giving you. He pulled on his testicles so hard! We had to take him to the emergency room!"_

Emma, Sean and Jen all looked at their father at the same time, as he said, on screen, _"There's something you didn't know about your dad!"_

The screen flashed once again, and the family watched as Joey did his 'dramatic reading', followed by Phoebe performing her song.

"_Is that it?" Rachel asked._

"_No, of course not! I also, you know, prepared a reading." She picked up a book. "Sex and the Single Mother. Finding your G-"_

The screen switched again, and Ross and Rachel laughed in their spot.

"_Hello Emma," Judy said. "Happy eighteenth birthday."_

"_Right now that seems so far away," Jack added. _

"_Yes, you'll be all grown up by then. We'll be…well, your grandfather and I might not be here."_

"_That's true! This message could be coming to you from beyond the grave, Emma!"_

The two went on to describe different reasons of why they may die. Emma shook her head; her grandparents were very much alive, and still living in Long Island.

_Chandler grinned. "Hi Emma! It's the year 2020. Are you still enjoying your nap?"_

"_We're Aunt Monica and Uncle Chandler, by the way. You may not recognize us, because we haven't spoken to your parents in _seventeen_ years!" Monica said._

"_We used to be married, but then we missed a weekend away together and things kind of unraveled. Because of you! Happy birthday."_

Emma noticed her father roll his eyes. She chuckled lightly, knowing that she had slept for a long time during her first birthday.

"_Emma, how old are you? How old are you today?" Chandler held up his index finger._

_The young girl copied. "Wo-ish."_

Sean snickered. "Very intelligent."

His older sister smacked him on the shoulder. "Shut up, my first word was 'gleba'. What was yours? Or, right. 'Car'." She mimicked a baby at the last word.

"_Okay," Rachel said as Ross waved. "Hi Emma. Well, your first birthday is over, and it was really…"_

There was indistinctyelling in the background as Ross and Rachel disappeared from the screen. Emma heard Phoebe suddenly yell something loudly, and then the camera was turned off.

Ross pressed 'stop' on the remote and grinned at his daughter.

"That was…interesting," Emma said slowly.

"Was that Joey's apartment?" Sean seemed interested.

Rachel nodded. "Yeah."

"Why didn't you have it at the old apartment that's in the photos?" Jen asked innocently. She was still a bit too young to really explain her parent's old situation to.

"Uh, because Emma and Mom were living there then," Ross said.

"Hey, Ross, isn't there something else on there?" Rachel looked at her husband with wide eyes. He seemed to realize and pressed 'play' with a nod, and the screen came back on, except this time the background was Ross' old apartment.

"_Well, let's try again," Ross said as he sat beside Rachel on the couch._

"_Hi again, sweetie. We got a little distracted with your aunts and uncles before, but here's me and your dad sending you our own message." Rachel smiled at the camera. "It's hard to believe that we just put you to sleep in your crib, and when you see this you're going to be an adult."_

_Ross nodded. "Yeah. You're eighteen. That seems far away now."_

_Rachel started in. "So, your first birthday didn't go off perfectly, but it was pretty good. The whole gang was there, and your grandma and grandpa Geller. My parents couldn't come, but what can you do, huh? You slept for a lot of it, but once you were up, everyone loved you, and you seemed to have fun. Your cake was fixed, too, thanks to your dad."_

Emma knew about what had happened with the cake. Her mother had only recently told her, saying she had finally gotten to the proper age to hear the story.

"_Rach, let's not talk about the cake," Ross said quietly, then looked back at the camera. "Well, happy 18th birthday. I hope it's been a good one."_

"_Yes, and I hope you're happy. I don't want your growing up to be affected by us not being together."_

"_Yeah, we want you to have been brought up well, happy, and healthy. And hopefully you're good at science." Rachel slapped him on the shoulder. _

"_We may not be together now, and I don't know if we are seventeen years from now… but who knows?" she added thoughtfully._

_Ross looked at Rachel, seeming to consider what she was saying. He nodded finally. "Yeah, 2020 is a long time away. I couldn't even guess on where we all are then. Now. Uh… this is confusing."_

"_But really, we want you to be surrounded by love no matter what, which I don't think will be a problem, seeing as how much your aunts and uncles and grandparents love you. So, happy birthday honey."_

"_Yeah, happy first and eighteenth birthday. Now that's a weird sentence."_

The screen went blue, signaling Ross to shut it off. Emma looked at her parents and grinned. "You two _so_ wanted to get back together,"she teased.

"Even so," Rachel said as she stood and stretched. "It was complicated."

"Well, good thing you two figured everything out. I wouldn't be here if you hadn't," Sean declared dramatically.

Jen snuggled up with her dad. "Did you record me and Sean's first birthdays?"

Ross kissed the top of her head. "Yeah, but you can't watch it 'till you're eighteen."

Sean pondered this. "I can't wait until I'm eighteen. I'll be driving, and legal, and going to college…"

Rachel groaned as she sat in between her two oldest children. "Don't even start, Sean. I already have one child leaving."

"Too bad this video didn't make an appearance on my _actual_ birthday, which was like, ten months ago." Emma leaned her head against Rachel's shoulder.

The Geller family sat in silence for a few minutes, before Ross broke it. "Well, we gotta start dinner, because people are coming over soon, and if there isn't food, they aren't going to be happy."

"I'll help," Rachel said quickly as she followed her husband into the kitchen.

"You _really_ don't have to," Emma heard her dad say, and knew he didn't want Rachel to help.

"Oh come on! I've gotten better! I haven't even set anything on fire in two months!" her mother pleaded.

Sean turned the TV back on to whatever he had been watching before. Jen sat beside him, flipping through a book. Emma stood at the edge of the living room, a smile forming on her face.

She went up the stairs, bracing herself to be overwhelmed with boxes. Yet she couldn't deny the happy feeling she now felt after watching her first birthday.

_I don't think there could've been a better way to send me off to college_, she thought as she opened the door to her bedroom and promptly tripped on a drawer.

**XXX**

_End._


End file.
